Wednesday, February 11, 2015

JA Zenchu Reform - Really?

Wow. An instance where one really has to read a text all the way to the end...and then wonder "Where in a news organization could one find an employee capable of such mendacious wordcraft as to devise such a headline?" (Link)

Ignoring the absurd opening claim for now, what is one to make of the body of the story? Remember that the Yomiuri Shimbun is the shameless snake-oil platform claiming that every single thing Abe Shinzo attempts is a majestic work of pure genius.

OK, not all the time. But most of the time.

However here, not even the Yomiuri Shimbun could pretend for more than a few seconds that there is a real reform story in the Abe reform of JA-Zenchu.

Read that last paragraph again. When I read it I hear the echoes of the last lines of Animal Farm by George Orwell.

As for the reform plan, all I can see it doing is taking away from JA-Zenchu its serious responsibility to oversee the accounts of the mid-level cooperatives, turning over the oversight function to accounting firms -- which, post-2008, we know to be a terrific, risk-free way of guaranteeing better governance at these bodies -- this in the industry that plays the truly minor role of growing and delivering the food we are supposed to eat.

Later -The Liberal Democratic Party is now complaining about opposition parties denouncing the reform proposals as empty and pointless. (Link-J)